This invention relates generally to systems and methods for enhancing aircraft departure situational awareness and recovery where participating automated systems may be on board aircraft, on the ground, or both.
In 2005, airlines moved nearly five million people over 40 million miles every day. However, airlines do not make optimal use of their aircraft and personnel. Airlines do not capitalize on existing information residing in various systems because each system solves a niche problem. By understanding the interrelated factors (weather, unscheduled equipment maintenance, late airplane arrivals, late passengers, crew shortages and legality, aircraft loading, regulatory authority practices, etc.) that can delay an aircraft turn at a gate of an airport, situational awareness of actual events in relation to the flight schedule can provide information to maximize profits.
Situation awareness communications are not limited to gathering and presenting data from a plurality of aircraft systems when the aircraft is in the air, but also includes gathering data when the aircraft is on the ground. Situation awareness communication is generally bidirectional. As used herein, the term aircraft refers to airplanes, helicopters, missiles and any object capable of flight.
Situational awareness is a term that may be used to refer to the degree of accuracy by which one's perception of their current environment mirrors reality. It is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening in a person's respective environment with regards to a mission, for example, airline operations. More simply, it is knowing what is going on around you. Different groups of people and different people within a group need different information to be aware of different aspects of a situation in order to determine a proper resolution to the situation. When an enterprise loses situational awareness, there is increased potential for human error and other mishaps.
Situation awareness has traditionally been confined to ground based systems with ground based presentation to ground based users. Increasingly sophisticated on board automated aircraft systems and aircraft communication systems provide the opportunity for the aircraft, whether in the air or on the ground to be in communication in real time with systems on the ground. For example, airline, airport station, maintenance operations, and business functions have traditionally been complex, and characterized by failures in situational awareness. In the future, these airline operations will be even more complex because more information will be available from the aircraft to make decisions. The challenge is interpreting and relating this data in order to enhance situational awareness. A desired state of situational awareness includes the gathering of data from many sources, filtering it according to the characteristics of the current situation and presenting the critical information to the right people, on and off the airplane, as it is occurring. Such a system will eliminate information overload and poor communications.